Rob Burnett on His New Film "We Made This Movie"

9/24/2012 11:49AM

Rob Burnett, longtime Executive Producer for the Late Show with David Letterman, talks with WSJ's Simon Constable about his new film "We Made This Movie" and the future of entertainment distribution in a digital age.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... the opening satellites ... will finance you know from the Late Show With David Letterman ... made its imperious ... his office to talk to us ... thank you Brian much for joining us and ... congratulations thank you very much thanks ... thanks for having me am excited for school we made this movie yes I'm it's about making a movie that's ... so ... it's ... good ... yes you know what what what happens is that these five high school kids ... they even though the report and they have no prospects and decide where to go out make a movie ... ay ay ... ay ay ... the ... mining because we have video cameras and everyone can do it ... well and one can do it but not necessarily everyone should do so they go out ... and they try to make a movie comely Jackass in a very low brow comedy their prime for teachers and all the stuff ... but they're awful I think they're funny than a few lessons tell ... line your teeth ... but the trigger more movies that main character ... is so excited filled with adolescent hubris that he gets to re freshman ... to show off to follow them around ... because he wants everything captured for the DVD extras he wants the making of the movie was sold actually gonna be great if I can treat for ... those around him ... you know for the braking ... well what happens is they are trying to do their movie but meanwhile these freshman cameras very subtly start capturing their lives which we start to see are quite heartbreaking ... and they all have ... a really touching coming of age boys ... what inspired you ... to make these movies is of the economic climate means a dismal particular to young people ... um you know I think it was more for us ... the the the the fact that that there is all of this technology in the world right now ... and everybody has access it's it's amazing to me you know having been in this this is now for awhile ... that you know my kids are cutting their home movies on the same software that I'm putting the Letterman show or my movie ... that just how it is today so everyone can kind of do it and ... yes ... there is this push I think for you know young people ... they wanna be famous they wanna be rich but they don't quite know how to go about it and that's a lot of what this movie is they've got the tools ... that they don't quite they don't quite know how to put it together ... the union ECB from from Longhorn seventy one ... I look this good it's impossible not to the rescue and ... the Iraqis in the six excess of ... about five ten ... you you seen a lot changes in the business that it is meant ... to digital but we don't we ... now know that we're on the beest live ... aam ... the sound the way movies are gone now is that ... that doing things on the cheap and creatively and find a workaround is probably see the future well I think it's a revenue outlook I think a lot of people ... say ... you know ... bookstore is music stores movie theaters are all going away ... there's a huge problem or movie theaters are not going anywhere ... you know movie theaters ... are different than music stores and bookstores in my opinion because ... you don't go to a movie theater to buy them if you don't connect watch ... the other ones are all that's gone ... and others much easier ways to buy things with clicking by its ... experience is what it yes as long as there's ... teenagers that wanna get away from their parents and us in the darkroom movie theaters will exist in name and ... now having said that ... there's a whole nother ... way to do things there are now other screens that you can see things on ... and ... large chunks of movies will be consumed on these other screens so the business is actually changing ... movie theaters will be there ... but there'll also be movies like ours that ... maybe you know we had a choice we have got a distributor for a movie like this and probably opened on three screens in New York three in Chicago three L a ... it would cost several million dollars to market that hope we get some word of mouth hope it builds that's the way a traditional movie of this size would go when deciding to let let's try something completely new ... I want to wear my kids consume things ... um ... you know will give this a shot ... was your favorite moment and only twenty one days pregnant Spain is a move on and on ... um ... you know that the best part of this movie for me it was working with these kids ... because ... they were so happy and so energetic it was it was most of their first jobs ... I didn't have the heart to tell them ... that ... every episode of the ad cost two million dollars every last one of them this entire movie cost a million so when we get we stayed in this hotel in a IIa literally the end of the day shooting day we'd all be here you work for twelve hours we take the casting of Chile's of the Outback and they honestly these kids thought they'd died and gone to heaven to the point where Arthur Meyer one of the kids ... John and I were looking ... we said I think Arthur is gaining weight he gained fifteen pounds in the movie because I know he was eating before he got a Ritz cracker from craft service and the bloomin onion from us out ... thank you very much thank you so much